I really didn’t mean to fall asleep but with the four hours I’d gotten the night before, it was inevitable. Except all I did was dream of my mom.
~ * ~ *
“We’ll get your car tomorrow,” Dex said as we got off his bike that night after closing up Pins.
I’d been surprised that he even came back to the parlor after he’d dropped me off with Blue that afternoon. He’d left me sleeping at the bar for four hours. Four hours of sleeping on the couch with my neck twisted, my drool a little river from the corner of my mouth down my chin.
The only reason why I'd gotten up was because I felt something dabbing at my face. That "something" was a napkin Dex was holding while looking like he was trying his best not to smile.
Not cool, and when I told him just that, he threw his head back and laughed.
His laugh still unsettled me.
Work had been steady like usual until Dex showed up around nine, cool as a cucumber to tattoo his nighttime appointments. The only sign he’d given me that this day was different from every other one before spending the night at his house and spilling his guts about his family back in Austin, was when he stood behind me after tattooing a client and wrapped his fingers around the back of my neck while I typed in a follow-up appointment for him.
I tried my best not to react to his touch but this was Dex. Hot Dex. Hot Dex that screamed at scary, mean men for me. Hot Dex with a piercing in his thing. Supposedly.
God, guessing where that piercing was located was a game I had no business playing.
“What do you wanna eat for dinner?” he asked as he held a hand out to help me off his bike.
“Anything really.”
“You know how to cook?” He watched as I pulled off his helmet.
“Yeah. Do you have groceries?”
He nodded. “I have shit in the freezer.”
“I have shit in the freezer,” I repeated his words back to him, walking into the house. So eloquent. “Well, I can probably figure out something. No promises it’ll be good though.”
He shrugged, still facing forward before detouring to head in the direction of his bedroom. “Gonna shower. Make whatever you want, babe. I’m not picky.”
The stuff in his freezer wasn’t exactly shit, but compared to Sonny’s house, it was like this guy visited the grocery store once a month instead of weekly. I found cans of diced tomatoes, pasta, and dried herbs in the pantry that I set out, while a big pot of water boiled—after spending ten minutes trying to find pots that were scattered in random cabinets throughout the kitchen. For as organized as Dex made sure we kept Pins, he didn’t have the same standards at home.
“What are you makin’?” Dex asked from just a few feet behind me.
I turned to look at him over my shoulder. “Spaghetti." I gave him a little smile, taking in the worn white undershirt he'd put on. "If you want to take out some of that chicken you have in the freezer, I'll cook it."
He hummed. “Sounds good. I’ll pop the chicken in the microwave, babe. No big deal."
I smiled at him from over my shoulder. “Well, it probably won't be that good since there wasn't much to choose from in the pantry but...hopefully it won't taste like crap.”
Dumping the box of noodles that were in his cupboard into the big pot of water, I saw him pull out the freezer bag with precooked grilled chicken and set two breasts onto a plate. "I'm sure it'll be better than anythin' I can cook," he chuckled, putting the plate into the microwave and setting the timer.
“You better hope so." I made a face, stirring the pot.
He snickered.
The silence felt pretty awkward while I dealt with the food cooking. Trying to kill the tense silence, I tried to think about something to talk about. “So you’ve known Sonny for a long time?”
Dex was sitting there next to the bar with both elbows resting on the counter, hunched over it. “Ever since your pa used to drop him off with my ma durin’ club meetings.”
“You didn’t go to school together?”
He shook his head. “Nah. We lived in different hoods. Him and Trip went to school together.” For a brief moment, he got this far off look in his eye that made me wonder what kind of crap he was remembering. Probably nothing good.
“Oh. I don’t know why I got the impression you two were pretty close.”
Dex pushed away whatever had caught his attention on memory lane. “Close enough. I didn’t even know he still kept in contact with you ‘til a few years ago. He used to take off and not say shit to anyone about where he was goin’.”
Yeah...that sounded like Sonny. I lifted up a shoulder at him.
“Thought you were too good to come see him.”
And that had me narrowing my eyes over in his direction. It was a fact. A statement, and if I took the time to absorb what he was saying, I’d understand his point. So I saved my smart ass comment and went for a scowl. “I didn’t have money or time.”
He gave me a long look before nodding. “Yeah, I get that now.”
When he didn’t say anything else, I tried to think of what else to talk to him about. The distance between us wasn’t so painful at Pins, but at his house? It was. Oh lord, it was. I was grateful to him for letting me stay and sitting there quietly, well, awkwardly quietly, seemed wrong.
“I like your house,” I blurted out the first thought that came to mind.
He glanced up and looked around his kitchen, tipping his chin down. Dex’s mouth formed a serious straight line. “Me too.”
“Have you lived here long?”
“Almost a year in November,” he answered.
Why was he making this so difficult? I glanced at the bare walls and clean counters, listened to the cicadas outsides, thinking of the fact he lived out of the city limits. “I’m a little surprised you have a house out here and not an apartment like Trip’s.” A little shudder curled through my spine when I thought of the state his toilet seat had been in.
In typical Dex fashion he picked up on the last thing I would expect. “You been to Trip’s place?”
Did his tone sound off or was I imagining it? One look at the straight line of his jaw had me deciding I’d imagined it. “Once.”
“Huh,” he huffed. Those dark blue orbs narrowed for a split second. His fingers tapped against the counter before he started talking again. “I used to live in the same complex before I bought this place. Fuckin’ hated it there.”
“Really?”
Dex lifted up a shoulder. “Made me feel like I was livin’ in a beehive. Kinda reminded me too much of bein’ all cramped up in a double-wide as a kid, too.” When he went to start scratching at his throat, I understood how awkward and uncomfortable the memories of living in a trailer made him feel.
Then I remembered everything he’d said about growing up with his drunk of a dad. That kind of man in such a small place? Oh hell. With two sisters? Where the hell would he have even slept?
Acid built up in my chest and throat so quickly it caught me off guard. I was suddenly the one that felt uncomfortable. “I had to share a room with my little brother—bunk beds—until I was nineteen.” Yia-yia’s house had been so small, but it’d been home. I swallowed hard at the memory of sleeping on the couch at the apartment we’d moved into after selling the second home I’d ever known. “So I get it.”
And then, nothing. Silence.
O-kay. I could let that topic go.
I fumbled my way through making sauce for the pasta, hoping it wouldn’t taste completely bland since I didn’t have the right ingredients. In the mean time, Dex watched quietly, only getting up to grab a beer from the fridge and asking if I wanted a drink.